by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Experimental Portland psych sextet Abronia (which includes pedal steel, saxophone, and one big bass drum among it’s make-up) are set to release their sophomore album The Whole Of Each Eye on October 25th as a co-release with Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records. The band continue to create visionary music from dimensions beyond, carefully constructing mind expanding sonic landscapes that traverse great distances as they unfold. It’s the kind of record you can get lost in and once you’ve found your way, you just want to be lost again. There’s definitely a progressive element to their sound, blending in krautrock, free jazz, folk, and drone, for something distinctly art-rock influenced. Each song feels as though born unto itself rather than labored over or pieced together.
The record’s first single, “Half Hail,” opens slow and meditative, with a clean yet snaking guitar line setting an almost spiritual ambiance, allowing the outside world to melt away as Keelin Mayer’s chanted vocals seep in. The song eventually opens up with abrupt and dirgy guitar, before settling back into their cosmic dust and slowly enveloping headspace into the unknown. There’s something about the scorched earth psych of it that reminds me of a rattlesnake in the burning sun, determined and dangerous. With a primal and ritualistic rhythm opening about half way though, the mysticism continues its bloom from there as the sax squeals and the band congeal together into one strange trip before the crushing final moments.